Not Today
by EnglishPoet18
Summary: Daryl was badly worn down and had pretty much given up hope when Beth was taken by that unknown person in season four. He tried to save her because she was his last hope or so he thought... This is NOT a Bethyl fic. It's CARYL so don't get confused. Rated T. I own nothing from The Walking Dead.


**Hello! This is another one of those lovely little tidbits that has just been sitting in my inbox hanging out until the muse decided it worthy to be finished. Well I guess tonight it won out, because this seems to be the only thing I've gotten done. It takes place in season four right after Beth gets taken and Daryl takes off running after the car. He's pretty beaten at this point so his mind isn't what it normally is. I decided to explore this scene a little further under the pretense that Joe's group didn't show up and he was just left there at that crossroads. I promise that I'm working on updates for the others. It's slow going as I still have a horrible cough and it's hard to concentrate at times, but it's getting there. All good things come to those who wait, right?  
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_**...**_

_**"Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise." -Victor Hugo**_

...

In the space of a single moment, a heartbeat of time can whole-heartedly alter the course of our lives. The steps that we take may falter and our decisions may fail, but we must keep moving until there is nothing left to move. It is not the end until there is nothing left.

Except for Daryl Dixon...it felt like there was nothing left.

Something inside of him finally broke the instant that he ran outside of the house by the cemetery and saw Beth's things lying on the cold, hard ground. His last link to the group, his last shred of hope died as he ran after the mysterious car.

In so many ways the young girl had kept him grounded, lifting his spirits when they hadn't ever been as low. There was something in the way that she refused to give up, her sweet innocence about everything in life that had managed to keep him afloat when he was barely treading water. She wasn't a replacement for his pain, but she was a merciful distraction that he clung to with everything he had left.

With her gone he felt empty and the feelings that had lingered just on the edges of his mind blazed to surface. He paused and took a deep gulp of air, resting his hands on his knees in utter agony. There was no one left to act as a buffer now and with that knowledge came the emotions that he could no longer control.

She was gone..._just gone._

Except it wasn't Beth that he mourned, but the one who had crept stealthily inside of his heart and taken him prisoner. It was the one who understood him like no other had ever understood him before. It was so much more than just Beth being taken. It hurt him that she was gone, but at the same time he feared that there wasn't any more room left in his heart to mourn her when every cell in his body screamed for Carol. He needed Beth back if for nothing else than to tell him that there was still _hope_. He needed to believe that Carol was still alive even when he had no one.

Every step was like an arrow to the heart, his boots echoing dully on the pavement. Walkers approached him and he mindlessly knifed them down, running on pure instinct at this point. Each face that confronted him was a reminder that she had yet to be found and for all he knew she never would be. Everyone he had ever cared about was gone. This was his punishment, his cross to bear for all the wrong that he had done in his life. This was it and he knew that he would die out here without her. She was the only one that he had ever allowed himself to love, the only one whom his heart still beat for.

And she wasn't here.

He didn't even know if he would ever find her or maybe if he even wanted to at this point. He doubted that he could live with himself if he found her turned into one of _them_, nothing more than a monster who wanted to eat his heart out. Who knows... for her he would gladly surrender his life. She was everything that he wasn't, but everything that he ever really wanted. She was his light.

As he came to the crossroads, he simply stood there and stared. For once in Daryl Dixon's entire life, he was lost. He had absolutely no inkling of which way to go anymore. He was tired, mentally and physically. And so he did the only thing he knew to do.

He sat down, crossbow clattering to the ground beside him. He had nothing left to give, no more hope that there was even anything left to hope for anymore. So he sat and he stared, mind drifting back to the memories he had of her, all the time he had wasted when he should have told her. He should have told her that he cared, but instead he had held it inside, the burning knowledge that he loved her more than he loved life itself. There had been many opportunities to tell her, all of them wasted when he failed to find the courage.

He was a coward through and through, not the sort of badass hero that the group had always played him to be. He had been strong - yes, but without Carol his strength had diminished down to a shell of a man. That shell knew that it was time to give it all up, to lay it all down. This was the end and he was just tired of losing people.

Shadows played back and forth overhead as the sun slowly shifted positions in the sky. Daylight began to simmer to dusk and still he sat. He waited for the dead to come and take him away, to gnaw at his flesh and put him out of his misery, but for once none passed.

Until they did.

He heard the footsteps, but he made no movements to protect himself. He knew this was for the best and that he couldn't face this world without his people, his family. As the walker appeared in front of him, he only saw her face and he smiled at his angel of mercy. He had known she would come to him in his final moments and it gave him peace to know that he had been right.

Her cool hands touched his face and he curved into her touch. He could almost feel her like she was really there with him.

"Carol," he murmured.

"Daryl," she whispered. "What have you done?"

"I'm so sorry," he closed his eyes and sighed. "I should have told you sooner. I was wrong to wait..."

"Should have told me what?"

He hummed contentedly, "That I love you...If I had only told you then maybe things would have been different."

"Oh sweetheart," she let out a rush of breath. "You can't do this to yourself. It's not you and you're better than that."

He turned his face away, ashamed that she was seeing him at his lowest point. He was beaten and battered and giving up, something a Dixon just didn't do. "I'm not like the others. I ain't a machine...I can't just keep goin' on -" He gasped out loud and closed his eyes, terrified that his emotions would show through.

"You're every bit as good as them. I've said it before I know, but I mean it. It's time you started believing it. Get up." She poked his shoulder and he grunted.

"Let me be woman. Just go," he said tiredly.

"Alright, fine. You want to sit here and weep like a big baby then go ahead. Get yourself killed and leave me in this world all alone. See if I care."

Daryl felt his anger stir and he shifted, his eyes opening to seek her out. He didn't see her at first and he panicked, thinking that she had indeed left him, but there she was, standing off to the side with a petulant look upon her face.

"You shouldn't care about me," he ground out. "I'm no good for you. There's better men out there." His chest ached with each word, but he forced them out into the air.

"There's only one man in this world for me Daryl Dixon...and right now he's giving up on me and any possible future that we might have together. He doesn't seem to care that I love him too."

"You love me? Why?" There wasn't much of him left to love he feared...just that empty shell.

"Why not?" There it was...that sass that he loved so much. He almost grinned just from hearing it. "We don't have all night for me to sit here and list the reasons, but for you to think otherwise makes me question your very intelligence Daryl Dixon."

He chuckled then and lay back on the pavement, "Yeah, guess you're right. It ain't over til' it's over, right?"

She hummed in agreement, "Nine lives, remember?"

He did remember. That day he had saved her from the tombs when he had thought her gone forever only proved that he still had hope. She had risen from the ashes once before, there was no stopping her from doing so again. If he gave up on her now then he was giving up on them and any chance that they might have together for a future. He couldn't allow himself to do that, not to her, not ever.

As the shuffling of long dead feet drew closer, Daryl's fingers grazed his bow. He slipped a bolt free and twirled it around his fingers feeling every inch of the wood's weight in his palm. The walker struck - a snarling, putrid, decaying corpse that wanted its next meal.

But it wouldn't be Daryl.

He slammed the tip of the bolt upwards, jamming it through the walker's chin with a renewed energy. The walker fell to the ground next to him with a thud as Daryl climbed slowly to his feet. He picked up his bow and placed it on his shoulder where it belonged, staring down at the dead corpse.

"_Not_ _today_."

With that said, he turned away and continued forth, never looking back.

...


End file.
